


Stealing Time

by Port



Category: Fantastic Four (Comicverse), Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: Community: Towerparty, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 12:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4705304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Port/pseuds/Port
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Peter started coming around at last, Johnny let out a long, low breath, what felt like his first in hours. Peter’s head had been a warm weight on his thigh, the rest of his body prone upon the rough stone floor, but now he was shifting and muttering.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stealing Time

**Author's Note:**

> Oy, this is total id fic. But I think I might write more in this universe, so it's id fic for a good cause! Thanks to flipflop_diva for tagging me with yohkobennington's excellent prompt, "I won't let the terror in, I'm stealing time."

When Peter started coming around at last, Johnny let out a long, low breath, what felt like his first in hours. Peter’s head had been a warm weight on his thigh, the rest of his body prone upon the rough stone floor, but now he was shifting and muttering. 

“Take it easy, buddy,” he said, pressing a hand against Peter’s shoulder to keep him lying down. Peter was still in costume, bits of it torn here and there from the fight that had KO’ed him. Nobody seemed to be here, but you never knew, so Johnny had resisted the urge to peel away the mask, even after it got lonely waiting for Peter to wake up. 

“Torch? Did you catch the number of that bus?” Peter mumbled, one gloved hand flopping upward to gingerly inspect his own head.

Johnny felt some more of his worry easing. Peter was still cracking wise and, just as importantly, still knew Johnny. Based on prior experience, he’d probably heal up just fine. It was just while he was passed out that that was hard to know, and Peter had been out for the better part of the night.

“What do you remember?” Johnny asked.

Peter tried again to sit up, slower this time, so Johnny helped him sit against the bookshelf. “Ah, I remember…” Peter trailed off, then said, “Dude called himself Ozymandias. Stealing stuff all over town.”

“Good. What else?”

“Um, fighting?”

Johnny nudged him. “Do you remember fighting him, or is that just your best guess?”

Peter shrugged and leaned against Johnny’s shoulder, which Johnny would have ordinarily been pleased with, except that it was probably due to Peter losing a minor battle against gravity. He scooted closer and put a supportive arm around Peter’s shoulders.

“It’s a good guess, I’m thinking,” Peter mumbled. “Why are we surrounded by bookshelves? Are we hiding in the basement of the Central Library again?”

“We weren’t hiding that time, Webhead. Just regrouping.”

“If ‘regrouping’ is a synonym for ‘actively avoiding the notice of hostile aliens who are searching for you,’ then we’re on the same page. But that’s beside the point. We’re not in the basement of the Central Library, are we?”

Johnny sighed and gestured at the little ball of fire that he had kept lighting their space. It grew and grew until its glow touched everything for a considerable distance. The space was a sort of vault-like cave, with aisles of shelves stretching what had to be miles in every direction. The ceiling was higher up than Peter could jump on a good day, the walls well out of sight, even from the air. His was the only light.

“Pretty certain the taxpayers would never vote for this kind of expansion,” Peter said, gazing way down the aisle. “What is this place?”

“A repository, I think. Wait till you see all the stuff on the shelves. Our man Ozzy has been at this for a while.”

“You’d need years to fill up a space like this. Are there even walls within walking distance?”

“I flew up and looked around when we first got here, but I couldn’t see anything. I kind of wonder if we’re not in another dimension.”

Peter groaned against his shoulder. “And we both love otherworldly dimensions so much. I take it Ozzy isn’t here with us?”

The last Johnny had seen of the guy was in the Museum of Natural History, bludgeoning Peter with a vibranium statuette on loan from Wakanda. It had been the middle of the night. They had heard the alarms and gone in ahead of the police to find the suspected mastermind of thefts from a dozen museums and even more city historical sites carefully carrying a box filled with objets du arte toward a glowing portal standing free in the middle of the Wakanda exhibit. To the man’s limited credit, he had placed the box on the floor without breaking anything before really getting into it with him and Spider-man. 

Then there was the bludgeoning, and Peter falling, and a lot of red in Johnny’s vision, more than his flames accounted for. The scene played itself over again, as it had for the last several hours. Peter falling. Ozymandias catching him roughly by the arm, Peter limp, unconscious.

“You’ll do for my human stasis collection, Spider-man,” Ozymandias had said, smiling and covetous. 

Johnny had been half a second too slow to prevent the man from tossing Peter through the portal, but he didn’t hesitate to follow him through it into what turned out to be the dark, cavernous space where they now sat.

“Nah, he closed the portal after we came through,” Johnny told Peter, in answer to his question. “I haven’t seen him since.”

“And we came through why, again?”

“Terrible accident,” Johnny said. “You slipped on a banana peel, slid right through the glowing doorway.”

Peter didn’t answer. Johnny tightened his arm around his shoulders and let him rest, even when it got too quiet and he wished they could get up and explore. After some time, Peter shifted a little and raised his hand to his head, pulling off his mask. Underneath, he was bruised and half-covered in flakes of dried blood, but the cuts from the edges of that damn statuette were healing. Johnny found himself delicately feeling around the wounds for trouble spots, careful of Peter’s responses. Peter watched him, eyes steady.

“So when I slipped on that banana peel,” he said.

“It was very clumsy, even for you,” Johnny heard himself say.

“You are such an idiot. You went right in after me, didn’t you.”

Johnny leaned in and kissed Peter’s mouth. His lips were dry and he sure didn’t taste like toothpaste, but Peter responded the way he always did, with a little hum of welcome.

“You always choose the weirdest moments to make out,” Peter said, eyeing him. “Like when I’m trying to give you credit for doing something selfless.”

It had been the opposite of selfless; Johnny didn’t know what he’d have done if the door had closed with Peter on the other side.

“It’s called a deflection,” Johnny said. “But I don’t think it’s working the way it should. Let me try that again.”

He kissed Peter softly, not aiming to turn it into more, and for a few minutes they forgot about being trapped in another dimension with no apparent food or water source or way home. Peter seemed to strengthen as they touched each other. He was a tactile guy, always seemed to revive a little with human contact, and Johnny was always glad to be the one Peter went to for that, to be the one Peter went to on an ordinary day just to trade insults and poke fun at each other too.

“All right, consider the subject deflected,” Peter finally said. He untangled himself and stood, pulling Johnny with him. Johnny’s back cracked from sitting down so long. Peter watched him stretch, a fond look on his face that would be familiar except for all the bruising. Johnny never knew what to do with that look. He rather suspected he mirrored it. “But hey, hotshot.” Peter gripped his arm. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m kind of glad you’re here.”

“Trapped in the galaxy’s biggest flea market? Thanks.”

“Trapped with me,” Peter said. He slipped his mask back on, covering the steady, fond expression he wore. “Let’s explore, shall we?”

\- Fin


End file.
